Landline caller display and spoofed calls?

[marfie]

A few months back our landline stopped working. I suspect we had been switched to the fibre side without notification and they were "fixing" the issue based on calls. The "fix" was a simple matter of swapping phone base-stations around, plugging into the Hub and configuring it.

However since then we seem to have had more calls from people pretending to be Microsoft Support, some of which have turned offensive. The mildest was when I was called handsome, or so she said. The word she used initially translates to "idiot".

The phone displays a caller ID. I believe it has been possible to spoof this ID. Is that still possible on the fibre landline? If the caller IDs are valid I will start reporting them.

[MOD EDIT: Subject title changed for clarity]

[Matthew_ML]

Hey marfie, thank you for reaching out and I am sorry to hear this.

Some VOIP phones do have this feature but I do know from experience not all models have this feature.

You would need to check the manufacture handbook for this information. 

If your model has this we could look at adding this for you. 

[Client62]

The scam callers do use VOIP and it is very simple for them to send a fake number that changes on an hour by hour basis.  Not answering the phone to unknown callers is by far the most effective method of discouraging scammers from noting you as a person that does answer and calling your number over and over.

[Matthew_ML]

Thank you for posting this advice, you could also look at blocking it also.

[nodrogd]

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@marfie wrote:

The phone displays a caller ID. I believe it has been possible to spoof this ID. Is that still possible on the fibre landline? If the caller IDs are valid I will start reporting them.

[MOD EDIT: Subject title changed for clarity]

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Virgin is currently using a hybrid service (21CV). All this does is bypass the copper pair wire from your old phone socket to the local street node with a digital version that goes straight back to the cable headend. The cable headend houses the conventional PSTN exchange you have always been using. So apart from the wire used & the transmission method, nothing much else has changed & the service is just as vulnerable to misuse. I would also point out that a lot of number cloning goes on, so blocking of numbers by providers would just result in genuine calls being stopped.

Full VoIP is due to come in when the PSTN exchanges are eventually switched off.